News Link • WAR: About that War

Drones are fool's gold: they prolong wars we can't win

01-13-2013 • http://www.guardian.co, Simon Jenkins

The greatest threat to world peace is not from nuclear weapons and their possible proliferation. It is from drones and their certain proliferation. Nuclear bombs are useless weapons, playthings for the powerful or those aspiring to power. Drones are now sweeping the global arms market. There are some 10,000 said to be in service, of which a thousand are armed and mostly American. Some reports say they have killed more non-combatant civilians than died in 9/11.

I have not read one independent study of the current drone wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the horn of Africa that suggests these weapons serve any strategic purpose. Their "success" is expressed solely in body count, the number of so-called "al-Qaida-linked commanders" killed. If body count were victory, the Germans would have won Stalingrad and the Americans Vietnam.

Neither the legality nor the ethics of drone attacks bear examination. Last year's exhaustive report by lawyers from Stanford and New York universities concluded that they were in many cases illegal, killed civilians, and were militarily counter-productive. Among the deaths were an estimated 176 children. Such slaughter would have an infantry unit court-martialled. Air forces enjoy such prestige that civilian deaths are excused as a price worth paying for not jeopardising pilots' lives.

1 Comments in Response to Drones are fool's gold: they prolong wars we can't win

Comment by Ed Price

Entered on: 1/13/2013 12:48:54 PM

Drones are part of a test. They are part of a POWER test being done by the Power Elite.

The PE know that there is a certain small percent of people who don't care. They don't care about country. They don't care about family. All they care about is money.

Drones are part of an active test that is deploying some of these callous people. More are needed. But since there are only a few percentage-wise, they will be too thin numbers-wise to spread throughout all the PE manufacturing facilities and operations in the PE fight for world domination.

Drones are quasi-robots. Robotics isn't far enough along so that a complete robot drone, or a robot-run manufacturing center, or a robot-operated mining operation, or an entirely robot-run anything is effective. So, the few callous people along with the robots, will be able to do the things that the PE need done to win the world.

The drones are a test. The PE is far enough along with their human-robot program, that they can use actively, effective drones, both as a test for future development, while at the same time starting to achieve the goals of Power Elite world conquest. And what better place to do the tests than the Middle East and Far East, where the American public are divided on the ethics and morals of such a drone program.